The Slice: You’ll have to pardon the comparison

Slice reader Dale Roloff noted that if you glance at a map of Montana in just the right way, the state’s western border looks like Richard Nixon’s profile.

It helps if you can look at the Big Sky State by itself, without Idaho smushing into it.

Feel free to turn Roloff’s observation into a Halloween costume.

“Re: the Spokane Public Library’s automated notification system: “I was so glad to see this subject in your column last weekend,” wrote Mia Shanks Davidson.

She said that when the library’s computer phones her, it addresses her as “Missing in Action Shanks Davidson.”

“Cut to the chase: You might recall that The Slice has gone on record as saying 95 percent of extended families have at least one person who watches TV news and asks, “Why would someone do that?” during reports on various crimes, acts of vandalism and such.

Well, sometimes people are also tempted to pose that question when out in public.

The other day I was in a grocery checkout line when I saw the back of a guy in the next line. His T-shirt said, “I got knifed in Spokane.”

There’s always the chance that this expression is some pop culture reference I simply don’t get. But I’m thinking there’s a stronger possibility that Mr. Knifed in Spokane simply possesses a singular sense of style, the appeal of which eludes me.

“Just wondering: How do you discover new music that you like?

“Thanks for the memories: Robbie Black was a manager at the River Ridge Yoke’s store that closed recently. He has moved on to a different grocery store. But he wants his former customers to know he’ll miss them. Many had become his friends.

“I’ve been to some great birthday parties, to weddings and, sadly some funerals,” he wrote. “… they are a great group of people.”

“Slice answer: Several readers said they went to the fair, “Because we always go.”

“Warm-up question: What has been your experience with remote controlled flatulence simulators? (A Slice reader stopped by and demonstrated one of these sound-effects devices. In the long, sometimes strange history of the Review Tower lobby, it had to be one of the weirder moments.)